I've been in my job a whole year. Wow!

Okay so this week marks an entire year in my job and I can't believe it, it's gone so quickly.

I'm at the end of my second 'official' rotation in urgent care and about to rotate into trauma and orthopaedics which is exciting. I'm really looking forward to it as I feel it completes my band 5 basic skill set, as I've never worked in T & O even as a student.

I've been so lucky in my first year; I've been given the opportunities to experience a variety of clinical areas and work with, and learn from lots of fantastic and dedicated professionals. I really feel I have grown as a therapist and am happy with the progress I have achieved.

So looking forward to the future I am aiming to consolidate my current skills, take on more service development roles, mentoring a more junior band 5 and supervising a lower band colleague. I will become competent in and run my own hand therapy clinics.
 Additionally I will be looking to do student supervisory training, take on more responsibilities and be looking for opportunities to experience some of the 'management' tasks of a band 6.

I am incredibly happy and proud what I have achieved over the past 4 years. I love my job and wouldn't change it for the world. But this point marks a new chapter in my life and therefore I don't plan to blog anymore, however I will leave my blog 'live' and will continue to respond to emails about my journey.
Thank you to those who have consistently read my blog since 2010.

Lucie xx

April

I cannot believe it's already mid April; 3 months have passed since my last post. Things are very much the same, still loving my job. Still finding it hard to find time to post. On the plus side it's sunnier and my garden is looking pretty!!

I've been reflecting on the change I have seen in myself throughout my 'journey' following several comments from friends and family. Some attributes I feel I have gained, or developed wholly as a person, and some I feel are more dominant at work.

When I am 'work' me, I am very much myself, just with a little more restraint, not much else changes about me. On a daily basis I put myself in situations outside of my comfort zone, as per the description of my job - I have to approach people, make telephone calls and be decisive; things which I find lacking in my 'home' me. In fact decisiveness, on my lack of at home is the main reason Ben and I bicker.
I have never been brilliant with words, and tend to 'say it how it is' so to speak, but I am increasingly able to be articulate and concise in communication at work. Although I still find myself saying such things as 'mrs lady in bed...over there' and using gestures to describe things when I am unable to find the word - these happen less frequently now, but they are typical 'lucieisms'.

In general I feel I am more balanced, I have occupational balance. I am in flow. And I am enjoying being able to use all the words and phrases I learned at uni to describe myself :p. Throughout my life, I have never been described as confident, all my school reports stated that I lacked it. But I feel confident now, I feel I am competent and capable to do my job, and it's a great feeling.

I plan to post a final post around the date I will have been working for a year as a qualified OT, and will continue to monitor my blog and reply to the messages I receive. I may even add additional posts now and again, but I certainly plan to keep the blog live, as I enjoy being able to document my personal and professional progress.

xx

Dissertation

I am writing about the conscious decisions made by people when experiencing pain in regards to continuing participation. A particular theme became apparent in that for people to continue whilst under pain, the concept of 'activity pacing' occurred naturally. However, for this to work, people had to be ready to accept changes to their life and their routine, e.g. slowing down, accepting help or adopting new values.  This can be explained by Prochaska and DiClemente's 1983  Transtheoretical model of health behaviour change, which I wrote a post about as a revision exercise for myself, (coincidently, I am currently getting lots of hits on it, which I assume is from second year OT students - which is why during my thought process I connected the two!!)

#OTGEEK.

xx

New layout, yay!

So I've spent the last two days in my room doing my work - I had to draw a line somewhere and stop, so at 22:30 that is what I did. So I did a new layout and painted my nails.
Have put some date on the side bar, just so you have an idea of where/what I'm upto, so that if I forget to say, when it comes to plans etc.

Been so busy with work the past couple of weeks - but it's all so interesting! Even the research methods module has my attention! Spent the evening writing a brief plan for one of my essays, hoping my seminar leader will say yes or no, and then I can really get started. Also I wrote out my fourth Cue Card, for my exam on Enabling Occupation 2, found it hard to summarise Standardised Assessments into 300 words, so just stuck with a quote, key words, and clinical reasoning prompts. Looking at the previous exam questions, I think it was a good idea.
Still waiting for my last exam date to come through, but the latest I will be home is the 21st, or at a push 22nd.
I think I need bigger folders because the amount of resources/tools I have amassed, as well as my notes and lecture slides are already filling my folders, and that's only 4 weeks!
(Now because I will have to travel down on the train, I am hoping that it doesn't snow this time around! And will have to start taking suitcases of stuff down with me!).

Rather sleepy I must admit, so this will be a relitively early one for me! Niiight xx